Boys Don't Have Snakes For Arms
by Nightingalelynx
Summary: Vampires are classified as reptilians, too. So when a certain snake-boy came across a fellow creature of the night, will he defend his territory? Or will she become part of his territory? And what does this bloodsucking angel think of the whip handed psychopath? Chapter 1 rewritten! :)
1. Intro

**Hey guys! I re-wrote this chapter because I kind of hated the other intro, because I don't think it shows the situation or the type of person Shay is at all! That was one sucky intro :( Anyway, let me know if this one's better (or worse) than the other one! Thanks.**

**Disclaimer: None of the characters in the story belong to me, except Shay. (But even Shay is based on the Vampire Diaries). They belong to Michael Grant. Enjoy! Reviews would be appreciated.**

**I've actually started the Gone series a long time ago, but I only JUST managed to buy Fear (seriously, wasn't it supposed to be out like… 6 months ago?) and I loved it to bits, just like I adored the other ones. So here's my tribute to this series (hopefully it'll be a good one!) :D Enjoy!**

**Note: I know vampires are related to bats and/or leeches, neither of which are reptilian. But it's close enough, right? Also, vampires in this story are like the vampires in the Vampire Diaries.**

**Warning: Contains violence!**

**~Nightingalelynx**

**Summary:**Vampires are classified as reptilians, too. So when a certain snake-boy came across a fellow creature of the night, will he defend his territory? Or will she become part of his territory? And what does this bloodsucking angel think of the whip handed psychopath?

**Boys Don't Have Snakes For Arms**

The bare feet of the dark haired girl pitter-pattered into a third empty hallway. The sound echoed throughout the solitary empty building. She was wearing a nightgown, and carried a flashlight—both items a luxury in the FAYZ.

The bright glare of the fluorescent light, however, illuminated the girl's gaunt, pale face. There were shadows the size of San Francisco de Sales Island under her eyes, and her back was stooped, as if she hadn't slept for a month.

In fact, she hadn't slept for an entire decade. She had slept mostly every night under the orders of her parents until she was five, but since then she had never slept. Because monsters and angels alike visited her when she was asleep. And both types of visitors turned always turned a sweet dream into a nightmare.

There was a nameless dark prince in particular who kept visiting her. It was this dark prince who had made this creature of the night afraid of the dark.

But no matter. Sleep wasn't the reason why Shay Haydenson was so deathly pale. Sleep wasn't the reason why Shay Haydenson had deep cracks like dry earth running through her face. Sleep wasn't the reason why Shay Haydenson was tired.

Even as Shay walked, she panted for breath. She'd gone as long as she could, and now, to sustain herself, she needed something. Something that she would find in the third door of the third hallway in the Evanston Air National Guard Base. Shay licked her dry lips with an equally raspy tongue. She was thirsty, but she didn't want water. She didn't need water.

The door creaked open, and Shay staggered inside. Rats. She could smell the tangy iron immediately. It was like a blast to reawaken the dead. Blank eyes brightened with savage intensity as they stared hungrily at the rows of cages filled with rats. Rats bred for testing chemicals had become Shay's personal food source.

She barely registered the fact that she had to save up. As the fifteen year old girl inhaled the scent of blood, all she wanted to do was to tear through the room until nothing was left alive. Even as the scattered pictures—all tinged with red—gathered in her mind, Shay felt the tips of her fangs piercing through her gums, probing at her cracked lips.

With an inhuman strength, Shay smashed apart one cage. The rats squeaked and scattered immediately, but even their quick reflexes couldn't beat that of a vampire's. The fangs were out almost immediately, and pulsing veins appeared on pale as death skin. Brown irises darkened slightly before turning gold.

This feeding, like most, was a blur. All Shay could remember was the feeling she got when the tangy iron taste slid down her throat like a perfect remedy; the feeling she got when her razor sharp fangs sank so easily into her victim's neck, like a knife through a wedge of half-melted butter. All Shay could remember was that feeling of power when she held her victim's life in her fangs, and that feeling of ecstasy and sudden burst of strength when she ripped the life out of her victim.

And after that, all Shay could feel was shame at those feelings.

Her parents had taught her ever since she was little, though, that as long as Shay didn't kill humans for fun, Shay didn't need to feel shame. They taught her that she should feel proud that she was different, and was able to limit her urges to feeding on animals.

Shay was different from humans, obviously. But she was also different from other vampires. She was born, not made. And she would keep growing older until she found her trigger. Her trigger for eternal life. Otherwise, she would live and die as a vampire, like her great-great grandmother had. No one knew where this special line had started. But even the Originals knew that once triggered, this line was just as strong and just as powerful as themselves.

They were like two warring families who were different branches of the same family sometimes. Other times, they were best friends and allies.

But now Shay was trapped in the FAYZ with a limited amount of blood for an unlimited amount of time. How was she supposed to find her trigger now?

The lean, slim girl stood up straight to her true height and wiped the blood off the edges of her mouth. She was slightly taller than average at her age, and her slim frame emphasized that image. Her formerly pale skin was now a sun-bronzed tan, and her formerly dull eyes were now big and bright.

She glanced over at the cages. Only two left. Time to see what she could find in the forests as well as in the kitchen. Rats bred themselves in the kitchens, after all, even though there was none left the last time Shay checked.

Shay turned to go, but then a movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. A rat stood at the edge of its cage, its beady black eyes glittering in the light of her fluorescent flashlight. Its tiny paws clutched at the bars of the cage, and it just stood there. Looking at her.

With intelligent beetle-like eyes.

Shay remembered that these rats were chemically tested upon. And with so much nuclear power around here causing mutations like Sam's in humans… why not in rats, too?

The rat kept staring.

Shay took a step forward and growled at it.

The rat never blinked.

_Perhaps,_ Shay mused as she licked the rat's blood from her lips, _if the rat had learned some manners… it probably could have stayed alive for a little longer._

Shay sauntered out of the room and the door clicked shut behind her.

She didn't notice the icy blue tinge that had begun to settle itself across her vision.

The beautiful barefooted girl glided through the trees, licking the rabbit's blood off her lips.

Shay Haydenson smiled, remembering that euphoric feeling of power she had when she sank her fangs into that scraggly white rabbit and drained it dry.

A frightened bird took off from a tree at Shay's approach. Shay imagined jumping up and snatching the creature out of the air. She reveled in the fact that she could do it, but she didn't in the end. That was ungraceful, and a bird didn't concern her.

Nothing much did anymore.

Even the prospect of drinking some human blood to restore herself to her former strength seemed like a good idea. Shay hated being weak, and restricting herself to a diet of only animals made her less powerful than the vampires who drank human blood.

But she was in the FAYZ, and there were no other vampires in the FAYZ.

And she was the most powerful of them all, in the FAYZ.

Shay laughed again. She didn't notice the cold, icy blue tinge that settled itself across her vision. The warmest summer colors gradually sharpened into cold, detached colors.

She didn't notice it at all.

All she noticed was the smell of blood. A lot of blood. A devilish smirk grew across her face, and she followed the smell of iron at a pleasant pace. She wasn't hungry, after all. But she wanted a snack.

The trail led her towards the main gravel path that led to the lake, much to her surprise. Shay hadn't seen a road in ages, so she quickened her pace a little. There was too much human traffic there—Shay wanted to avoid humans for fear of accidentally eating one, and prey never ventured onto main roads, anyway.

Before Shay got through the final barrier of trees, she noticed a dead coyote, with a bullet through its eye. She giggled.

Then she stepped onto the road.

Dead humans lay all over the place—literally. An arm lay separated from its body, which was mostly skin and bones. It was a massacre. The dead coyote she had seen was the only dead coyote in this place. The humans had clearly taken the brunt of the attack.

Somehow, Shay couldn't bring herself to care. _Bodies are decomposed into the soil, so that the animals have something to eat, and so that the soil has nutrients so the plants can grow,_ Shay thought. _But the body's __**blood**__ isn't needed to help the ecological system._Automatically, almost robotically, Shay dipped her head down to take her first taste of human blood in years. Then she stopped.

Her sharp ears picked up a faint beating of someone's heart. _Fresh blood,_ Shay thought, licking her lips greedily. She stood up in a flash and zoomed over to the source of the noise. At first, she couldn't find the source of the heartbeat. They all looked dead to her.

Except for one. Shay was knelt down next to the kid's body in a split second. It was a boy, and he looked about four to five years old, as far as Shay could tell from his general bone structure and size. Everything else was raw and red and ripped. His face looked like it had been torn off—only his mouth remained defined: a gaping hole on his face.

She could hear the heartbeat clearly from this distance. This little boy was still alive. Fresh blood. Her fangs began to grow out of her gums, and pulsing veins appeared on the slightly tanned skin underneath Shay's eyes. But then it stopped. The fangs shrunk back into her gums.

Shay reached out almost tenderly to touch the little boy's hair, which had been left alone by the coyotes. The icy blue veil faded for just a second, and this time Shay noticed. The vibrant red color of the blood smeared across her hands was like a slap in the face. She hadn't seen that before.

Shay swore. _My humanity—my emotions—was turning itself off,_Shay snarled at herself. _How could I have been so stupid?_

You see, vampires did have feelings. But if they gave themselves in to the bloodlust too much, or if they decided to turn off their humanity because they couldn't deal with their emotions, they would just become heartless killing machines. Shay thought back to all those animals she'd killed for no reason except for her own enjoyment. She swallowed hard, and looked at the boy.

So much blood… but she wasn't hungry anymore. The fangs elongated, but this time, they ripped through her own wrist.

She held her wrist to the boy's gruesome, gaping mouth. Only a few drops of her blood managed to leak out before her wound healed again. None of it got anywhere near the boy's mouth.

Gritting her teeth, Shay tried again. This time, a few drops were swallowed. And that was enough. The changes were immediate, and more reliable than Lana's healing. First, the boy's limbs grew back. Then his flesh. Then his skin, his nose, his ears. His eyes, which had been ripped out by a claw, grew back.

Shay waited patiently, a sense of achievement already growing inside of her.

The boy breathed in deeply a few times. Then his eyes opened. Shay helped him sit up.

"Who… who are you?" The little boy asked in wonder. But he wasn't looking at Shay. He was looking around at the dead bodies.

"My name is Shay." Shay said soothingly, noticing the boy's rising panic at the deaths around them. She brought his attention back to her. "What's your name?"

"My name…" The little boy looked at Shay adoringly. "Mason."

"My name _is_Mason," Shay corrected. Mason bobbed his head up and down frantically, desperate to agree with anything Shay said.

"How old are you, Mason?"

Mason paused, then held up three fingers.

"Three years old?" Shay muttered. He had looked four or five years old! But then again, with his face grown back, he did look younger. And in the FAYZ, kids grew up quickly.

Mason looked around him and began to cry. Probably from shock and sheer hopelessness, rather than an injury, but Shay wrapped her arms around the little boy. "Shh," she murmured, stroking his curly black hair that was matted by blood. "It's going to be okay. I'm here. I'll take care of you."

They sat there for a while, until Mason's tears dried.

"You ready to go home?" Shay asked.

Mason bobbed his head up and down.

There was another delay, in which Mason ran frantically around, trying to look for his backpack and Iron Man plastic helmet. Shay sighed. She had no idea why she was doing this, but she found herself desperately wanting to see Sam and Quinn and Edilio and all the others again.

She followed Mason up the gravel road, thinking about her old friends' reactions when they saw her, but also keeping an eye on the little boy.

Suddenly, he started running back. "Look!" Mason cried, grabbing Shay's hand. "I see lights! I see the town!"

Shay let herself be pulled along.

They reached the docks just before nightfall. It really was a sight to see—all those boats lit up with Sammy suns, and the artificial nightfall—mostly black by now, but was still tinged with orange, pink, and purple at the top of the dome—was a perfect backdrop to this scene. Home.

Shay felt hopeful. She didn't even know what was bothering her before, and what she was hoping for now, but seeing those lights and the FAYZ sky filled her with just that. Hope.

"Let's go home, Mason." Shay said. They walked towards the camps, where they could see people still standing around, chatting. Beyond that, Shay could see the gangways leading up to the main boats, where the people slept. Shay couldn't keep the grin off her face. She didn't think about how she was going to get food, or how she was going to control the bloodlust. She just thought about seeing Sam again. After Astrid left… she could imagine his pain. And now? She could imagine his joy at having her back. They could hang out again, like old times.

Shay had stumbled into Astrid's campsite a while back. That was the only way she knew that Astrid had left. And, selfishly, Shay didn't want Sam to know where Astrid was and go running back into her undeserving arms.

A girl named Keira noticed them first. Keira gaped at them, and didn't seem to be able to speak. She had claw marks all over her arm and her face.

"MASON!" Keira screamed. A couple of people around her jumped back a little in fear, and Shay realized they all had some form of injury caused by coyotes.

No wonder they were so jumpy.

"Mason!" Keira repeated. "How… I saw you… two coyotes…" She choked off as Shay emerged from the shadows. Keira had always been a great gossip in Shay's eyes, and, since Shay was three years older than Keira (she was fifteen), Keira had looked up to her.

"So, what happened while I was gone?" Shay said, grinning winningly at the twelve-year-old girl.

And Keira told her everything that had happened so far since Shay had been away. She was babbling, mostly, since she was still shocked, but she got the main events across.

And then Keira told Shay about the FAYZ dome turning black, and Shay's blood ran cold. She looked up. The tinge of color she had seen was, as Keira said, from the very top of the dome, where the black was slowly closing in.

Shay lost interest in standing around and gossiping then. Undead heart pounding, she excused herself quickly, and left Mason in the care of the other survivors temporarily.

She jogged at human speed until she was out of sight, and then zoomed up the gangway and onto the boat she knew Sam was in. She found him quickly, by listening very carefully and then zoning in on the beat of his heart. He was standing on deck with Edilio.

She ducked into a shadowed corner as a boy she had never seen before walked quickly past her. He seemed to be in a hurry.

Then she peeked around the corner. And her undead heart almost stopped beating again. Sam stood there, looking every inch the golden boy that she remembered. She noticed that his hair had grown longer, and dirty blonde hair (so dark it was almost brown) hung loosely around his face. His eyes were still the same sweet light brown. (**AN: By the way, although I added a little ShayxSam, this entire fic is dedicated to ShayxDrake. Just saying.)**

Then Edilio spoke. (**AN: I'm going to have to put in some of the dialogue in the book here, just so my story and the original one would merge properly. Sorry, Michael Grant! I'm doing my best not to plagiarize!)**

"What are you going to do?" Edilio asked. Shay was fond of Edilio and his reliability. _He's a good guy,_ Shay thought. _I'm glad he's still alive._

"Why didn't you tell me you were gay?" Sam replied, sounding angry.

Shay inhaled suddenly, shocked. She only just managed to mute the noise. _What?!_ She thought.

"You got enough stuff to deal with," Edilio replied, sounding detached.

"That's not something I have to "deal with", Edilio." Sam replied. "My girlfriend lost, the world ending…"

Shay tuned out. _Girlfriend!?_ She thought, angrier this time. _Who the hell is he talking about? Astrid? She's been gone for months! How is she his girlfriend?_

Despite her jealousy, Shay liked Astrid. They were science partners once in a science club, and Astrid had managed to keep up. In fact, they were quite equal in terms of knowledge. And she knew Sam has had a crush on Astrid ever since… well. For a long time.

Shay smiled bitterly. _Just a friend,__ then, _Shay thought. It's wasn't heartbreaking, though. _Vampires were made of stronger stuff,_ Shay reasoned. But she was disappointed, all the same.

She tuned back into the conversation.

"Seriously? We're about to be plunged into eternal darkness and you think those kids out there are going to worry about who you like?" She heard Sam say.

There was a brief pause.

"I gotta tell you the truth, man. I don't see a way out of this," Sam continued. "I don't even see the starting point for a way out of this. I don't expect us to survive this."

"So in case this is it, Edilio, in case I go out there and don't come back, I want to say thank you. You've been a brother to me. My true brother."

"Yeah, well, we're not done for yet," Edilio said. He sounded as if he was touched by Sam's words but didn't want to show it. Typical Edilio. "So you're going?"

Shay tuned out again. She wasn't going to let her friends go face such danger alone, in the dark. She'd heard all about Drake, and all about that radioactive thing in the mineshaft. What was it called again? The Gaiaphage? Who came up with _that_?

Shay Haydenson leaned back into the shadows. She channeled her mother's two thousand year's worth of experience (that she had then taught Shay, who had not lived nearly as long) into coming up with a solution.

She came up with nothing.

Shay had somehow wandered into Jack. She had slipped into one of the rooms to hide, and found Jack bleeding his life away. And so she did what came naturally to her—she drank from the poor boy.

She couldn't help it. The urge was too strong. But on the bright side, she managed to stop. She managed to drag herself away from his nearly lifeless body, wipe his blood away from her mouth with her hands, and then heal him with her blood.

Luckily, Jack was too passed out to remember anything.

Shay wasn't sure whether she should stay to talk or leave immediately to avoid being detected.

She was confused. And frustrated. She didn't know where half her friends were, and if she ran around in the dark, it would take her forever to find them and to help. And in the distance, she could hear Mason shuffling around, asking for her (vampires had heightened hearing, and could pick out what they wanted to hear).

Jack sat up. Shay chickened out, and vanished. But Jack still caught a brief glimpse of raven black hair, slipping through the crack in the door.

Once outside, Shay looked up at the sky. It was completely black now. Shay felt a shiver run down her spine.

She really didn't know half of what was happening, and she was scared, and she didn't want to mess anything up by barging in. But there was one thing she knew she could do to help.

She could kill Drake.

Sure, Shay had never seen Drake before, but all she had to do was look for a whip arm, right? And after that, all she had to do was put a bullet through his head. Or she could rip his heart out.

Looks like Keira hadn't told Shay about Drake's undead abilities, huh? That could create some problems.

**AN: So, this was the first chapter. Review, please! Did you like it? Love it? Hate it? I wrote this chapter once already, but I realized that I had almost nothing on Shay's appearance or background at all! So, I re-did it. Without Drake, unfortunately. I'm not sure how to put him in this chapter. I'm also still figuring out where to fit this in—probably somewhere in the middle of Fear, so it'll probably contain spoilers.**

**Also, Shay's going to meet Drake for the first time next chapter! Are you excited? I know I am! I'm still trying to figure out how to get them to fall in love, but with Shay, being as impulsive as she is, and Drake, being as sexy as **_**he **_**is, it shouldn't be hard. Although I need ideas for how to keep Drake in character in a romance story. So like I said. Review!**

**The action's only just getting started, people :) Bear with me!**

**~Nightingalelynx**


	2. Meeting the Psychopath

**Disclaimer: None of the characters in the story belong to me, except Shay. (But even Shay is based on the Vampire Diaries). They belong to Michael Grant. Enjoy! Reviews would be appreciated.**

**My USB broke, and all my work was lost. I had to start again, which is why I'm updating this story so late. Sorry, and trust me, I really hope this doesn't happen again, too. Stupid USB :(**

**I know Shay's character is changing a lot. That's not because I didn't plan her character properly, but because I want her to be unpredictable. At first, she was the brooding, self-deprecating vampire who hated her vampiric immortality. Then she was the all-powerful vampire who's kind of indifferent. And now? She's a bit clueless. But all this is going to end up somewhere, I promise! :) What I'm trying to say about Shay (subtly) is that this vampire seriously doesn't know who she is. She's still finding herself, and also, she's heavily influenced by what others might think of her. Sorry, but she's not perfect!**

**Shoutout to Vampire from Lorien. Your reviews were really sweet, and made my day. Thanks! :D**

**Warning: Contains violence and gruesome scenes!**

**~Nightingalelynx**

**Chapter Three:**

Useless. Shay was utterly useless. She had wasted all night zooming around the forest and running into trees at 300 mph., which was already pretty slow for her. Then she had ended up back at Tramonto Lake.

_I'm like a blind wasp, _Shay thought in desperation. _Buzzing around the FAYZ with furious, stupid determination. I'm so lethal. But useless. Hell, I don't even know where the mineshaft is anymore!_

But then, by a stroke of sudden clarity, Shay had remembered that the main road lead straight to Perdido Beach. So she had felt her way to the main road, and then she'd began to follow it.

It took her half an hour to get to Perdido Beach. _That's… 40 mph, _Shay calculated in her mind. The speed of a bike, but only if there was exactly the right amount of friction. Shay snorted. _That's pathetic._

The young, barefoot vampire raced into town.

The town was burning up. Red-hot tendrils of fire jumped from this building to that building, reaching for the ink black sky, colliding with the utter darkness. There were kids running, screaming. The noise jabbed at Shay like knives. It was like someone was hammering nails into her skull.

Shay clutched her head, groaning slightly. The sights, the smells, the sounds, the heartbeats rising in panic, it was all too much for her heightened senses. Glazed, unfocused eyes darted around desperately. She focused on a ball of light.

It was quite dim, compared to the stabbing fiery tendrils.

It didn't flicker or jump.

It was the eye of the storm; a calm, hope bringing light in the midst of destruction.

Blood red lips curled up in a smile. _So, Sam's still alive_. That got Shay up and running again.

She got to the scene of the fight without further problem. Dark brown eyes, bright with adrenaline took in the scene before her in the space of a heartbeat.

A glowing, naked two year old smiling delightedly at this scene of carnage with her pink cherub lips.

Beautiful, sexy Diana, not so beautiful for once. She looked dazed and beaten, as if she'd run a marathon through hell.

Caine—clever, handsome, crazy Caine—pressed against the barrier. His body was gradually flattening, as if some unseen pressure was ramming him into it.

Skinny little Penny, lying in a puddle of her own blood on the ground. (**AN: Let's just say Penny wasn't killed by the rock, just severely maimed and injured.)**

And Sam—the golden boy Sam, curled up in pain underneath Drake's whip.

Because that had to be Drake.

The infamous sadistic psychopath. She noticed his flesh-colored tentacle first, like all other kids. It began somewhere near his elbow, and was surprisingly smooth. Like a whip.

But unlike other kids who had seen Drake's whip arm, Shay's brown eyes wandered upwards. Broad, surprisingly human-like shoulders. A shock of sandy blond hair.

Drake turned around and looked straight at Shay.

They made eye contact.

A flash of surprise flitted through the fifteen-year-old boy's eyes before they became impassive and cold yet again.

But as Shay laid eyes on the infamous boy for the first time, she didn't feel fear. She was… intrigued.

She gave him a hesitant smile.

He paused for a split second, his face devoid of emotion. But then he smiled back.

But even then, his smile was devoid of any kindness. It was a predatory smile—an empty shark smile.

Shay felt a shiver run up her spine. Her smile became even more uncertain.

Then, she was blinded by the light.

Drake concentrated on the sound of Sam's pain. The feeling he got when his whip hand hit Sam's vulnerable flesh. The smell of blood. Drake lived for this kind of thing, and the Gaiaphage had given Drake what he had always wanted. Power. Control.

The sandy-haired boy was so involved that he almost didn't notice the slim girl who had appeared right behind him as if she had teleported.

He had expected to find that little Asian bimbo, Taylor, standing behind him. Instead, he found a girl who, in all honesty, looked a lot like the old Diana at first glance.

Drake didn't know how he felt towards Diana. He hated her, definitely. But sometimes, he would wake up at night sweating, and then he would realize that he had been dreaming about Diana. About her running from Caine, and begging for Drake instead.

So when he saw this nearly identical girl—so darkly beautiful, with the same midnight waves of hair and big brown eyes, he didn't know how to react. That feeling intensified when he realized that those brown eyes were staring straight into his own.

Not at his whip hand.

The Diana look-alike gave him a tentative smile that took Drake's breath away.

Drake didn't even realize that he had smiled back. What he did realize though, was the feeling that this was the start of something seriously wrong.

Nothing could be more wrong than Drake, anyway. Or so Drake thought.

_Perfect! A distraction!_ Shay thought militaristically as she reacted (a lot faster than the others) to the flash of light. She ran in the general direction of Drake, undead heart pounding with a flurry of confusing emotions.

As the flash of light faded, she located Drake's shaggy blond head in the midst of the lingering brightness.

And then she ripped his head off with her hands. There. Dead.

Shay lived for this sort of thing. She lived _because_ of this sort of thing. She blurred over to help Sam, ignoring the funny twinge she suddenly felt.

"Sam!" Shay cried, believing wholeheartedly in Sam, but still shocked that he believed that a toddler was evil. "What are you doing? Stop!"

But even as she watched, she knew the baby was special. Even as she burned, she glared at Sam with an intriguing mixture of hatred and glee. And even as she burned, she grew older.

Time to end this weirdness, Shay decided. She'd finally found the fight, and after all, she is a vampire. Glamorously causing carnage and destruction was her forte. And maybe she could make up for her earlier stupidity.

She took two steps forward. Suddenly, she felt a wrenching sort of pain from within her body. As if someone was trying ripping her in half.

When she looked up, she realized that the baby was making a sort of stretching motion with her hands, as if she was stretching dough.

No matter. Shay's cartilage and bones healed itself quicker than the baby could play with her invisible dough. The baby even tilted her head in confusion.

But in that second, Drake had managed to heal himself.

And in that second, unbeknownst to Shay, the baby had given Drake the speed he needed to beat Shay.

The whip landed on Shay's back hard.

She twirled around, disbelieving. Somehow, Drake had managed to glue back his ripped off head. And now he had a murderous expression on his face. And he was impossibly fast.

She recovered quickly (because what are vampires if not quick?), sprinted forward and feinted to the left. She then threw an incredibly powerful punch to Drake's right jaw. Her fist ripped right through his jawline.

At the same time, Drake's whip arm curled around Shay's throat, crushing her windpipe. Shay didn't need to breathe, though.

She aimed a kick at Drake, who blocked it easily with his leg. The kick crushed the bones in his leg, but they regenerated before he could fall over. He aimed two precise consecutive punches at her chest, the second one which she managed to block because of her speed.

She threw a rather lousy but still lightning quick punch to the same part of Drake's face that she had hit before, hoping to slow down his healing.

The whip, also quick as lighting, simply curled further around her neck and fastened the rest of itself around her wrist.

They were at a standstill. This fight, which had started no more than 10 seconds earlier, had ended in a tie.

Because Shay still had her left hand and her two legs to rip a slightly more permanent hole through Drake with, and because Drake could easily rip off Shay's head with his whip arm around her neck.

Shay cursed her own uselessness. But her vocabulary of cusswords wasn't exactly that advanced.

Drake surprised himself as well as Shay when he laughed at her attempts to berate herself.

Shay's ears absorbed that laugh. It was the laugh of a psychopath, yes. But it was also the laugh of a boy. And Shay wasn't blind. She could see that Drake was good-looking, too.

Drake stopped laughing abruptly, as if he'd just realized what he was doing. Slightly ashamed grey eyes looked straight into bewildered brown ones.

Only then did Shay realize how close they were standing. She could practically feel Drake's breath on her cheek.

Evidently, Drake realized the same thing. He leaned back a little, not releasing his hold on Shay's wrist.

They stared at each other for a short, awkward moment.

"You know why we're at a standstill?" Drake said, his voice gruff with lack of use. He cleared his throat. He had no idea why he was telling her this, or why he was telling her anything at all. But he barreled on anyways. "It's because you're used to relying heavily on your superior speed and agility. You could even beat Brianna because she can't heal herself like you can. But now that I'm the same speed as you _and _I have the same ability to regenerate—"

Shay cut him off. "And your technique is really good, while I never trained. My punches were lousy but you were very precise with yours. Where did you learn how to fight?"

"My dad…" Drake paused. He had never voluntarily given this information up before. And especially not to someone who had just _interrupted him. _"He was a sheriff."

"Oh." Shay paused. She could feel Sam, Diana, and the baby's eyes boring into her back. She knew she was supposed to be fighting Drake, not talking. But somehow, she liked talking to him. She grasped for a new topic.

"So… if your speed and regeneration is the same as mine, and to top it off, your technique is better… why are we at a standstill?"

Drake was getting more and more weirded out by this conversation. His pause was much longer this time. "Because… because you're still more experienced and used to your speed. And because you can punch holes through someone with your bare hands."

"So you mean despite your new speed, I'm still infinitely more powerful?" Shay responded playfully.

Drake, who's eyes had been looking everywhere except at Shay until now, looked up suddenly through furious eyes. She dared insult him by saying she was more powerful?

And it was then that he realized that this Diana look-alike was laughing. She was _laughing. _At him! And she was gorgeous. Those big brown eyes were, Drake mused, actually very different from Diana's. This girl's were brighter, lighter, and unlike Diana's, her eyes weren't filled with deception and trickery.

And he liked her laugh. It wasn't like Diana's sly, seductive, throaty chuckle, but it was nice anyway. It was nice. That was the word. Nice.

The corners of Drake's pale lips tilted upwards, and soon he was laughing along with this new girl who had tried to behead him.

Drake hadn't laughed at something that wasn't pure physical pain caused by himself in a long, long time.

Somehow, that wasn't enough to tell Drake that this was seriously, insanely messed up.

Even by Drake standards.

**I was in a good mood today, so I'm just going to cut this chapter off while it's still happy and fluffy. But this story is not supposed to be happy and fluffy, and there's going to be some serious angst and dark themes. So enjoy this sweet moment while you still can! :D And don't expect the entire story to be like this from now on!**

**As usual, review, please! It would mean a lot to me, and it could also make this story better, too!**

**Until next time!**

**~Nightingalelynx**


	3. Astrid's Plan

**Disclaimer: None of the characters in the story belong to me, except Shay. (But even Shay is based on Vampire Diaries). They belong to Michael Grant. Enjoy! Reviews would be appreciated.**

**Note: Personally, I think the third part of this chapter is much more interesting. So skip the second part if you really want! :D**

**Warning: Contains violence and gruesome scenes!**

**~Nightingalelynx**

**Chapter Four:**

"Shay." Astrid's soft, lilting voice broke through Shay's daydreams.

Shay had spent all day staring out of the window to her new room, here in the Clifftop. After Quinn's refusal to take over Perdido Beach, Sam simply decided to move everyone to Perdido Beach.

"Everyone's safer if we're all together," Sam kept saying. And so, right after the barrier turning transparent, he gathered a newly healed Jack, Brianna, and Dekka, and marched back to Lake Tramonto, where he planned to convince everyone to go back to Perdido Beach. They also brought two trucks and some gas to drag everyone's most important belongings (mostly food) back to town.

And while he did that, Shay spent her day wondering about what had happened with Drake. Sexy, aloof, dangerous, psycho Drake Merwin had Shay's head spinning in confusion and maybe a little of something else, too.

Shay looked up to see the pretty blonde girl standing in her doorway, keeping her face carefully blank, but also clutching the doorknob so tightly her knuckles were nearly white.

"Is Sam back already?"

Shay had been dreading this all day long. The interrogation. The _why-did-you-talk-to-Drake _questions that even Shay herself couldn't answer.

"Yeah. Everyone's in the town hall, waiting for you." Astrid replied. With stiff shoulders, the girl turned around and marched back down the hallway.

"Astrid." Shay called softly as she unfolded her lean frame from the curled up position on the windowsill and stood up.

The blonde head popped back into view, looking slightly annoyed and a little guilty, probably guilty that she was annoyed.

"I'm not going to hurt you or Sam or anyone, you know that right?" Shay closed the space between them at a human pace.

A little frown appeared on Astrid's face. "I believe you. But let's see what the others think." The head disappeared from the doorway again, and Shay could hear the other girl's footsteps walking quite briskly down the hall.

Shay heaved a sigh, closed the door behind her, and took the stairs. She beat Astrid to the lobby by about three minutes.

When Astrid and Shay entered the town hall, everyone had already arrived, like Astrid said. They were sitting in a circle. Sam and Caine at the front of this circle. Next to Sam sat Edilio, then Quinn, then Lana, then Sanjit and then Dahra. John Terrafino sat with his back to the door. Dekka, Brianna, and Jack sat awkwardly next to each other. Orc sat next to Jack. And next to Caine, a blank eyed, twelve-year-old boy with black hair whom Sam introduced as Toto the truth-teller.

Astrid ditched Shay almost immediately, hurrying over and taking a seat next to Sam. She sat unnaturally close.

Swallowing a teeny bit of jealousy, Shay took a little step inside. She wasn't sure where to sit in this circle of the FAYZ's most important people. And in front of all those hostile stares, Shay wasn't sure she was welcome in this circle at all.

After an awkward pause, Sam took pity on the girl and asked her to sit down between Orc and Jack.

As she folded her long legs and sat down, Shay couldn't help but quip: "Putting me in between your two strongest soldiers, huh? The ones with super strength? Scared that I'm going to try to bite someone?"

This smart remark sounded surprisingly bitter. Shay saw Sam's eyes soften a little.

"No, Shay." Sam replied softly. "Just trying to find a place for you to sit."

Shay relented. "Thanks," she muttered, avoiding the stares of the rest of the people in the circle.

"So the purpose of this meeting should be quite clear—" Sam began.

"Cut the crap," Caine interrupted impatiently. He seemed slightly unnerved by the fact that he had none of his followers in this circle, but he sure as hell wasn't going to show it. "Let's stop pretending to be civilized. Hell, we're the furthest thing from civilized. Let's just get this stupid meeting over."

"Just speak up if you have any other concern along the way, okay?" Sam sighed. Caine smirked his rather pretty bad-boy smirk.

"Now, on to the urgent topics," Astrid said condescendingly. "The glowing baby people have been seeing, Drake, the Darkness—"

"Actually, I think we should start by talking about Shay." Caine interrupted.

With a guilty glance at Astrid, Edilio voiced his agreement. "After all, Shay's right here and can answer our questions, whereas the other stuff are kind of out of our reach right now. Let's just start simple, okay?"

"Good point," Astrid replied. "Alright. Shay."

Once again, all eyes were on Shay. "Just ask me questions, okay? I don't know where to start." Shay grumbled, not liking all the hostile attention.

Sam leaned forward in his chair. "Let's do this chronologically. I think we all know why you left, but what I want to know is whether or not you were ever going to come back to help us."

"Yes, but only after I learned to control my bloodlust. Otherwise, I figured I'd be more of a disaster to you guys than a helping hand."

"So you drink blood to survive. Do you… do you still drink human blood? Do you still _need _to… I mean… do you still have the…" John Terrafino piped up, his voice shaking slightly. He didn't seem to know how to continue. Ever since his sister's death, John had become more withdrawn and frightened at the same time.

"Bloodlust? I control it by drinking animal blood now, although I'm a lot stronger if I drink human blood."

"Any special abilities we should know about apart from super speed?" Edilio asked.

Brianna, understandably, looked miffed at this comment.

"Healing." At this, Lana's eyebrows raised. Shay realized Lana was the only one in the group who wasn't afraid or weirded out by her at all.

"Super strength. Our emotions are heightened compared to humans. Heightened senses, like better hearing and eyesight and stuff. Regeneration… sort of like Drake's but I can die while he… can't." She paused, thinking about the mysterious grey-eyed boy.

The notorious, handsome boy who had tried to kill her, then tried to teach her not to get killed. This would probably have created a strong emotion in a human. And as for Shay, she couldn't stop thinking about it. And the teeny bit of emotion Drake would have inspired in human Shay was blown way out of proportions in vampire Shay. She really couldn't help it. She was sort of… attracted to Drake.

_Shit, _Shay thought when she realized where her line of thought was leading her. _Oh no. This is not good._

Realizing that the others were waiting for her to continue, she cleared her throat again.

"Um… I can sense energy sometimes. It's kind of weird, and I can't control it, so it's basically useless."

"Energy?" Edilio probed.

"I don't know. Like… I can sense presences that are more spiritual. But only sometimes. It's like sensing God or something."

"Do you… do you sense anything right now?" Astrid sat up all of a sudden. She was looking directly at Shay now, an urgent look in her vibrant blue eyes.

"Um… no…?" Shay replied, a little freaked out. "Like I said before, I can't control it, it just comes as a sort of sixth sense."

"You have to keep trying to control it." Astrid snapped. Shay could suddenly hear the other girl's heartbeat going faster and faster, as if this was something incredibly important.

"I know you're religious, Astrid, but don't you think—"

"It's important. If you can figure out how to control this power, we might..." Astrid took a deep breath and Sam reached over to hold her hand reassuringly. "…we just might be able to end the FAYZ."

"Whoa. What?" Edilio said sharply.

"Yeah, where did that come from?" Sanjit tried to take on a joking tone, but by the end of the sentence, his face was dead serious.

"I think... no, I _know _Little Pete is still alive, but just without a body. He should count as a spiritual presence. And he started the FAYZ, after all. If we can find a way to communicate with him… He may be able to end the FAYZ." Astrid explained to her enraptured listeners, her eyes darting to and fro. She stopped talking almost abruptly. As Shay studied her body language, she realized something.

"Keep talking, Astrid. I know you know more." Shay murmured almost inaudibly. But everyone heard anyway.

Astrid's blue eyes widened a fraction.

"It's not a vampire thing," Shay allowed this short explanation. "Now keep going. We're all on the same boat. We need to know whatever you know."

There was a short, awkward pause, in which Astrid glared with some degree of intensity at Shay.

Finally, Astrid let out a long breath and blew a strand of pale hair out from in front of her face. "What I was keeping from you all was that Little Pete needs a body to access his full powers. Okay?"

"Then we have a chance to end the FAYZ," Sam beamed. He glanced at Astrid. "Someone just has to make a baby!"

A pause. Then Dahra giggled. The room burst into slightly relieved laughter. Even Astrid couldn't help but grin. The atmosphere brightened considerably.

"But you know it takes nine months, right?" Lana said slowly as the laughter faded.

"Yeah, and we might not have that long." Dekka supplied.

"Because of what? Drake? With Shay here, I think we don't have to worry about him." Caine said wittily, refusing to let go of the optimistic mood.

Unfortunately, it backfired. All eyes fell on Shay.

Shay studied her fingernails. They were smooth and perfectly formed, because Shay, unlike many others, didn't have the self-destructing habit of biting her nails. _But, _Shay mused as she twiddled her fingers; _the nail polish is chipping off._

"Yeah, Shay. What happened out there?" Lana asked boldly, finally voicing the question that had been on everyone's minds.

For a vampire, Shay took an awfully long time to look up. In fact, it was a pretty long time even for a human.

"Hmm?" Shay asked absently, while her brain was whirring at a hundred times the human speed, trying to think of an excuse.

"Come on, Shay. We're your friends. You can tell us." Sam inquired gently.

"I don't know. I mean… I tried to help Sam. And I was pretty surprised when Drake reattached his head." At this, Shay shot a glare at Sam, who shrugged apologetically. "And when we were at a standstill… " _Um, yeah. What happened there? Someone please tell me, because I want to know too._

"He started talking to me first, anyway." Shay finished sullenly, not being able to find anything else to say.

"And that's why this is great, guys." Caine cut in when he realized that Shay was done speaking. "If we can use Drake's little crush on Shay to our advantage to distract him during a fight, we can take him down for good."

"What? Crush?" Shay shrieked. Distractedly, Shay noted that her undead heart had picked up speed and was now drumming inside her chest.

"Except there's the problem of that glowing, super-powered baby. Or child. Who knows if she's still a baby anymore?" Sam pointed out, completely ignoring Shay.

Brianna gave Shay a sympathetic look that seemed to say either; _I'm sorry Sam is ignoring you and everyone here is being so hostile, _or; _I'm sorry Drake has a crush on you. _Probably both.

"That's true," Toto nodded.

"One step at a time," Caine shot back. The two brothers glared at each other.

"Guys, listen." Lana said. "The baby is the Gaiaphage, with a body, which is just what it needed. But remember when it was still a chunk of radioactive material? The Gaiaphage had been scared of Nemesis. Or, Little Pete."

"But now that the Gaiaphage has a body, and Little Pete doesn't, there's no competition at all." Quinn argued.

No one made the baby joke again.

"But actually, we have a better chance of taking down Drake now." Astrid said suddenly, standing up. Her pale gold hair glittered in the sunlight. "Taking Drake down means taking down the Gaiaphage's only rational soldier. Because even if Diana can plot, she can't fight, and even though the coyotes can fight, they can't think rationally."

That made a few people smile grimly.

"Taking Drake down would be a big blow to the Gaiaphage. And I don't think the Gaiaphage will be capable of creating mutations anymore, not ones like the bugs, anyway." She looked around at the bewildered group of people she had been speaking to.

"But… wasn't that what we were trying to do the entire time? We know taking Drake down is good for us, bad for the Gaiaphage." John Terrafino said, his tenor voice quivering as usual. "But how is having Shay here going to help us take Drake down? We haven't even figured out how to kill him. All Shay can do is fight him and fight him and fight him…"

At this, Astrid's face lit up. "I have a plan." She said.

At this, everyone gave a sigh of relief. Because usually when Astrid had a plan, all was right in the world.

Of course, this wasn't usually.

Now Shay was sitting in a lawn chair in the middle of the Town Plaza, in a white summer dress (the only clean one her size in Perdido Beach) waiting for Drake to bring the fight to her.

How, exactly, Astrid was going to get Drake to come, alone, to a party at Perdido Beach, without Diana or the Gaiaphage, was beyond Shay, but she liked the party idea, and they had nothing to lose if Drake didn't come anyway.

The music was blasted from a speaker running on batteries that Jack had managed to save. The music was pretty bad music, mostly awful rap songs that nobody had heard of. This was Zil's iPod, after all.

The kids hadn't heard a proper song in a long time, though, so no one really minded. Shay, on the other hand, had spent all this time listening to good songs on the military soldier's iPods back at Evanston Air National Guard.

So the result was that Shay was sick of this party. And bored. Which never happens to Shay at a party.

Pursing her lip-glossed pink lips, Shay stood up gracefully from her lawn chair, smoothed her dress, and slipped through the crowd of 300 nervously wiggling kids to find Jack, who was also defaulting as the DJ.

"Hey, Jack." Shay pushed a bit of her midnight hair out of her way as she finally reached the blond boy. "Can you please, please change the song? This song sucks, and this party is crap. No offense."

Jack grinned sheepishly. "I know, sorry. It's just… there are no good songs on here at all! And I'm saving the one or two good songs for when Drake comes."

"Well? Play one, then! He's never gonna show up if these are the types of songs we're playing." Shay waved her hand around. "You can always replay it, you know."

"All right, all right, since you saved my life," Jack winked. He picked up the iPod and scrolled through. "How's 'Ghetto Baby' by Cheryl Cole? I know it might not be everybody's favorite, but…"

"Play it, please!" Shay almost begged. She was sick of these songs with random guys slurring a bunch of words together. So not party-like.

"Here goes!" Jack said, tapping on the song.

It was slow. Slower than Shay had expected, but she could work with this.

She began to twist her body slowly, to the beat. A brilliant smile grew on Shay's face. Oh yes. She could work with this.

Then she looked up. And her heart leapt up to her throat.

Drake stood there, off to the side of the crowd, his smoky grey eyes looking so dark under the night sky. The Sammy lights reflected off his pupils.

"_I know you're sick boy, but I wanna get the flu," _Cheryl sang in the background. "_I'm running temperatures thinking of your love, boo."_

_So, so true,_ Shay thought, her heart sinking.

The mingling people around her took a few bewildered seconds to see what she was staring at. Someone screamed. The crowd parted, tripping over each other to get away from Drake. When Shay glanced to the right, she realized that Jack had disappeared, too.

The plan was in action.

Except it didn't really feel like a mission at all. It felt like her guy had finally appeared at a dance, and swooped in to sweep her off her feet.

The boy walked slowly, calmly forward as Shay stood, rooted to the spot.

His whip hand twitched.

"Hey, again," Shay said stupidly, fighting the blush rising on her face.

"Hi." Drake said shortly. Then, he turned away from her. But, even as Shay's big eyes widened, she realized he was only changing the song.

_Well, that nearly gave me a heart attack._ Shay thought.

The song "All the Right Moves" by One Republic came on. Drake returned to her side.

"Dance with me?" Drake asked, a knowing, calculating smile on his face. But instead of stretching out his hand, he stretched out his tentacle.

_I dare you to take my whip hand; _his eyes seemed to say.

_Whoa, what did Astrid bribe Drake with to make him come here? _Shay thought as she smiled courteously back and took his outstretched tentacle. She didn't wince as her fingers touched the smooth, inhuman flesh.

Drake looked slightly surprised before it disappeared again, swiftly and silently, just like his appearance to this dance. Now he looked appraising and then—nope, he was leering. Shay immediately felt cheap. But she kept the smile plastered to her face, not letting the hurt show.

They started to move. It was more fighting than dancing, really. But they managed to sort of copy the dance from the music video.

He was graceful, really. Who knew Drake Merwin could dance?

"_They got all the right friends in all the right places… so yeah, we're going down." _

A little frown appeared on Shay's pretty face. Why had that line jumped out at her? It was already the second chorus, after all. Then Shay realized how stupid she had been when she realized what she had heard was Drake. Singing. Well, humming. His voice was actually kind of nice. So sweet and low and melodic. Hard to believe that voice belonged to a sadistic psychopath.

"They said, everybody knows, everybody knows where we're going. Yeah, we're going down."

But never mind that he's actually singing. _I'm still mad at him for objectifying me, remember? _Shay tried to remind herself, shaking her head a little.

"Do you sing?" Drake asked her after a short moment. The question took Shay by surprise. It was so… normal.

_Do you think I'm special? Do you think I'm nice?_

"No." Shay replied truthfully. "I can't sing to save my life."

_Am I bright enough to shine in your spaces?_

Drake smiled. His tentacle began to fall a little too low down her waist.

Shay narrowed her eyes at him. The tentacle stopped. Then it spun her around, because the dance from the video required it, anyway.

"So, why did you come to this dance?" Shay decided to get straight to the point. "I mean, you aren't stupid. You know that Sam and Caine and all the others are around here somewhere." _And what in the world did Astrid manage to bribe you with? _Shay asked silently.

_Everybody knows, everybody knows where we're going… yeah, we're going down…_

Drake spun her around again, evading the question. When they were facing each other again, he shrugged as a way of answering.

"Come on. Tell me. I want to know," Shay persisted, feeling more than a little frustrated.

The music slowed.

_It doesn't matter what you see, I know I can never be, someone that looks like you._

_It doesn't matter what you hear, I know I can never face, someone that could sound like you…_

There was something infinitely sad in Drake's eyes, Shay thought. Probably her own imagination, but…

With a soft 'oh,' Shay realized that they had stopped dancing, and were just standing in the middle of the Town Plaza, swaying. She realized they had a pretty big, (and bewildered) audience, too. And she realized that Drake's human hand was hovering somewhere near her face. After a while, it finally landed, surprisingly gently, brushing over her pale complexion.

There was something feathery in Drake's gaze, Shay thought.

_So yeah, we're going down…_

Drake, on the other hand, had enough of pretending to love Shay, though; even some part of him told him this was actually kind of nice.

He wanted what he came for. As the song's last chorus blasted out from the speakers, he wrapped his tentacle around her waist and pulled Shay towards him forcefully. The startled 'oomph,' had barely made its way out of Shay's lips before Drake's pale ones were on her own. Rushed. Furious.

Drake was kissing her, Shay thought, surprisingly rationally, especially from someone in her situation.

Huh, Shay thought, wanting to smile but not knowing what was funny. Oh, right. The funny part was that she seemed to be melting into Drake's kiss.

Ha. A melting vampire. Could you eat a melting vampire? Shay wondered. But then again, wasn't that what Drake was doing to her, anyway? Eating? So it _is _possible to eat a melting vampire.

Then Sam totally ruined the moment by blasting a hole in Drake's back. In a snap, (literally), the tentacle was unwrapped from around Shay's waist. The lips lingered, though, just a millisecond longer.

Then Drake snatched a wailing kid from the crowd and held her as a shield. Shay hadn't even realized they were so close to the perimeter of the town plaza. He started backing away. Then, when he and a shell-shocked Shay were standing side by side, with Drake's front (and the poor kid) facing where Sam had been, Drake leaned in closer to Shay's ear, even though she had super hearing and could hear him even if he didn't lean closer.

"I came here for myself."

And then he was gone, even though Caine had removed the kid through telekinesis from Drake's grasp, and Brianna had rushed in to fight Drake.

Because he just disappeared.

Shay touched her lips gently with a badly shaking finger.

Then Astrid stormed in, her delicate frame shaking with fury. "I can't believe that didn't work! I can't believe I didn't foresee that Drake would have asked the Gaiaphage to teleport him away when he needed it. I can't believe the Gaiaphage's powers could reach that far, though! I can't believe—"

"Astrid," Shay interrupted the other girl's 'I can't believe' rant. There was something she really, really needed to know.

"What, exactly, did you bribe Drake with? For him to come here, I mean?"

Astrid stopped mid-rant, turning instead to study Shay carefully.

"Do you really want to know?" The girl asked, suddenly the epitome of calm.

"Yes. I'm curious. What could Drake have wanted or cared about so badly that he would risk his life to get it?"

A humorless smile formed on Astrid's face. The resulting answer was something Shay had never in a million years would have answered.

"Honestly, I didn't know. But I know now."

Shay staggered over to her lawn chair and slumped down onto it.

As the kids rushed around, chattering excitedly about what had just occurred, the only thought Shay could think was:

_Drake came here for himself._

**Hey! Thanks for reading, and please let me know what you think about this chapter (and story in general)! It would mean a lot!**

**So, this wasn't supposed to be in the fourth chapter at all, more like in the third chapter. And so I realized that this story was moving way, way too slowly. So, oops. I think I'll skip the next boring chapter and jump straight into another one that I'm writing, one with more action.**

**Anyway, thanks for reading! Until next time!**

**~Nightingalelynx**


	4. Shay's Psychotic Side

**Disclaimer: None of the characters in the story belong to me, except Shay. (But even Shay is based on Vampire Diaries). They belong to Michael Grant. Enjoy! Reviews would be appreciated.**

**Note: This is chapter 4 again because I combined chapters 1 and 2. :) Sorry for all this confusion! :P**

**Warning: Contains violence and gruesome scenes!**

**~Nightingalelynx**

**Chapter 4:**

She could feel their eyes drilling holes into her whenever she turned her back. She could hear them whispering.

Too bad Shay could hear them all word for word. Apparently, they were talking about what was called the 'STD Scandal.' Featuring Shay and Drake.

_What the hell? Drake doesn't have STDs! _Shay thought defensively.

"Shway!" A little boy with a mess of curly black hair weaved his way through the crowd, running at full pelt on his stubby legs towards Shay.

"What, Mason?" Shay said rather curtly. She sighed, and ruffled the little boy's curly black hair. "Sorry. What were you going to say?"

"_Poor Shay," _someone whispered.

"_Poor Shay!? Are you kidding me? What a slut!"_

"_Did you hear how she saved Computer Jack's life?—"_

"_With her own blood! How gross!"_

Mason gazed expectantly at Shay with his big green eyes. Shay realized Mason had said something.

"Huh?" Shay asked, half-dazed, half-angry (but not at Mason).

"Sam said 'get you'," Mason repeated with all the childlike innocence of a three-year old.

"Oh… Thanks." Shay shook herself out of her daze for a moment to look down at Mason in concern. "Aren't you supposed to be asleep? Wait… did Sam even allocate you a room?"

"Allocate?" The boy scrunched up his nose.

"Sorry, I meant; did Sam give you a place to sleep?" Shay repeated, unconsciously rubbing her forehead as she tried to clear her mind.

"I'm with the other pwee-Ks." Mason said.

"Oh, okay. I'll come find you later." Shay promised as she stood up from the lawn chair. Thank goodness Mason was there to distract her from the gossiping of the other kids. Even now, she could feel her anger filling to the brim, nearly boiling over.

The crowd parted and fell silent as the slim, slightly tanned vampire stalked past, a pissed off scowl on her pretty face. Every now and then, she caught a sight of them nudging each other, or hiding their smirks.

A group of girls stood with their backs to her as she walked straight towards them. None of the other kids dared make a noise to warn these unsuspecting kids.

"Oh my god, did you see the STD scandal?" One of the girls whispered confidentially.

"That was so disgusting!" A petite brunette agreed spitefully.

"No, it was kind of sweet. Their tainted, doomed love." A taller brunette sighed.

"_Love? _I mean, we all know Shay just can't help herself around—" The tall redhead standing at the front of the group had her lip curled up in distaste

"You girls done yet?" Shay interrupted rudely, her scowl deepening.

The girls froze, and then turned slowly around. Very, very slowly.

"Hurry up and _turn around, bitches. _" Shay snapped. She wanted—no, needed someone to take this anger out on.

There were four girls in total, each slowly turning beet red, their mouths opening and closing soundlessly, as if they wanted to say something, but no sound was coming out.

"Go on. I _dare _you to say it to my face." On the word 'dare', Shay made a slight growling noise, almost like an animal. "I dare you to tell me I'm a slut. And _don't _try to tell me that wasn't what you were saying. Because;" here, Shay pointed to her ears—"heightened hearing, remember?"

The girls looked nervously at each other, avoiding Shay's stormy eyes. None of them spoke, until finally, the tall redhead began to stutter:

"S-Shay, we d-didn't mean…"

"Oh yeah? I'm sure you don't mean it _now. _I'd rather you did mean it. Then, you'd just be a bitch, not a two-faced one." Shay shot back. She took an imposing step closer to the girls, who stumbled back a few steps.

Suddenly, Shay felt a sense of satisfaction replace some of her anger. So, they were scared of her. Somehow, that made Shay feel better than she had ever felt since she met Drake, with all his emotional baggage that he gave her.

"Why is it called the STD scandal, anyway? I mean—" here, Shay took another mean step closer— "we _kissed. _He's not going to pass some kind of sexual disease to me through A. Fucking. Kiss. "

By the end of her sentence, she was literally hissing. Her irises, so dark with anger at first was now changing, turning, replaced by an inhuman shade of gold.

Her pupils held midnight within them, though, creating a beautifully nightmarish contrast to her electric gold irises.

Blood red lips pulled back to reveal sculpted fangs.

Shay Haydenson was angry. Actually, she was furious.

"Shut up! Shut up!" Shay yelled, venting all her frustration on this poor girl, even though the girl had not said a word. "Shut the hell up!"

"S-Sorry, Shay! We don't… we won't…" The redhead blubbered, eyes wide with stricken fear. Her friends nodded desperately in agreement.

"Shall I give you something to be sorry ABOUT?" Shay roared through her bared fangs. These kids thought they were so cool? Shay used to be the Queen Bee before the FAYZ started. These dumb bitches couldn't do anything for themselves.

_They'd be dead by now if not for us._ _I'll… I'll __**show**__ them the power of a vampire! _Shay thought feverishly. Her vision locked in on the redhead's terrified face, loving the way the girl's red hair blended in to the red tinge of her outer vision, so that all she could see was the girl's pale, terrified, freckled face.

But this wasn't what she usually felt like before feeding on prey. Usually, all she could think of was the blood pounding in their veins.

Now, all Shay could think of was making the redhead regret that she had ever been born. She lifted her hand and brought it down with a resounding, sonic boom on the redhead's face.

The crowd scattered, even the redhead's friends. Everyone stared, wide-eyed and disbelieving.

Tears spilled over the redhead's blue eyes and she stuttered, again: "Shay, I'm sorry!"

"No you're not!" Shay snarled, punching the redhead in the face, though she at the last minute, she managed to restrain her strength a little so as to keep the poor girl alive. The girl's face practically dented in the middle, and her nose was clearly shattered.

A strange look of cruel, savage eagerness appeared in Shay's eyes.

_I've seen that look somewhere before, _the redhead, whose name was Sarah, couldn't help but notice. But for the life of her, she couldn't remember where she had seen it. All she knew was it created a sense of cold dread inside of her, like a psychological reaction, like a sort of programming.

"Now." Shay grabbed the girl by the collar of her shirt and lifted her off the ground. She was calm on the outside, but was still bleeding anger from her every pore. "Tell me what STD Scandal stands for."

The redhead had trouble speaking through her tears and the blood. "It s-stands for: S-Shay t-empting—" Here, she broke off, choking on her own snot.

"Tempting WHAT?" Shay screamed in her irrational, vampiric anger. She threw the taller girl ten feet up into the air like she was a sandbag. "Can't speak anymore? Funny, you seemed like you knew everything just now, when you were gossiping about something you knew nothing about."

The redhead was a mess. She had broken her arm and hit her head in the fall, and her face was barely recognizable through all the injuries it had suffered. "Shay!" She begged. "Please! I'm sorry! Please!"

A small smile curled up on Shay's blood red lips. Amusement glimmered in her (now partly back to normal) gold-brown eyes.

"Yeah. Beg, bitch. Keep begging." She slapped the redhead again in the same spot as before, drawing blood.

The sonic boom echoed throughout the silent Town Plaza. Everyone else stood frozen in fear, like statues.

Shay slapped the redhead again.

"You. Know. _Nothing." _She hissed.

Sam came rushing out of the Town Hall.

"I heard—sonic crack, like a whip—Drake—" He stopped short when he saw what had happened. Brown eyes widened in shock and disbelief.

Seeing Sam, the redhead let out an impulsive sigh of relief.

Shay's eyes narrowed like a cat. "Feeling relieved, huh?" Shay lifted the other girl up by her collar again. "But you shouldn't be. You didn't finish answering my question."

Suddenly, with the speed of light, Shay slammed the girl two-inches into the concrete. "Answer. Me." She relished the scream that came from the girl.

"SHAY! What are you doing? Have you lost your mind?" Sam shouted, taking a few strong strides forward to grab the vampire by her shoulders.

"Have you lost your mind?" Sam repeated, shaking those slim shoulders desperately. "Let go of that girl!"

There was, actually, a crazed yet scarily focused look in Shay's eyes. "You think you're the big boss?" Shay purred, tiger-like. "Fine. You can play leader. But remember this, Sammy boy—" Shay dropped the girl and the next thing Sam knew, Shay had him in a headlock from behind him.

"—I can rip your head off so, so easily." By the end of the sentence, Shay's voice was a whisper.

Sam shivered. He pulled himself out of the headlock easily, although he knew without a doubt that Shay could have kept him there all night if she really wanted to. He didn't dare turn to face her.

"Shay. This isn't you." He said to her, his voice also a whisper. She was his friend! She had been a cheerleader before the FAYZ came. She… she couldn't be a cold-blooded murderer.

Then again, he'd never guessed she had been a vampire.

Shay was silent for so long, Sam thought she had left. But as he turned around slowly, he heard a little sigh.

"You're wrong, Sam." Sam turned to see the sweet brown eyes he was used to seeing. But he would never see them the same way ever again. Shay forced a broken smile. "This_ is_ me." She spread her hands wide.

"I was born like this. I had to _learn _compassion and empathy. But at the end of the day…this is still me." She bent down next to the redhead girl.

She ripped through her wrist and fed the girl her blood. Within seconds, she had healed.

She turned around and projected her voice to the stricken crowd. "You'll all forget this," Shay said. For a moment, her voice sounded silky smooth, like honey, and her eyes turned gold.

_Forget what? _Sam thought, confused. _What happened?_

"Except you, Sam." Shay smiled grimly at the wide-eyed boy. Sam blinked, and suddenly he remembered what had happened, and couldn't help but shudder at the sudden influx of memories.

"And you." Shay helped the trembling redhead up. She let out a soft whimper as she relived the pain for a split second.

"Because I want you both to remember that this…" Shay walked backwards a few steps, spreading her hands wide again: "This is who I am."

She gave them a breathtaking smile, gave a carefree little shrug, and walked away.

Sam looked around at the happily milling people, all pondering why there was a girl-shaped dent in the concrete. He started to walk away when the redhead stopped him.

"Sam." The poor girl looked shaken to the core, poor thing.

"Yes? Sarah, is it?" Sam replied, wracking his brains for the girl's name.

"Just now—" Sarah drifted off for a moment, looking past Sam. "Just now, you didn't see her face."

"I was s-so scared," Sarah broke off into a sob. She then seemed to pull herself together. She grabbed Sam's arm and gripped it tightly, like it was her lifeline. "At first I wasn't too scared, because she's on our side, right? She's a good guy." The words came tumbling out of the girl's mouth.

Sam nodded sagely. "She's still on our side, Sarah. She just…" He was cut off by Sarah, who didn't look like she was listening at all, which was just as well because Sam had no idea what he was going to say next anyway.

"I thought she was done after she slapped me and yelled at me. What I did—what I said—yeah, it was… it was wrong. So I thought I deserved a few harsh words. At that time, I didn't know she'd go psycho on me." Sarah's grip was like iron.

Sam didn't say a word. Sarah's nails dug into his flesh.

"But after she punched me..." Sarah broke off again, gasping as she relived the memory. "I didn't know where I knew that expression, but from that moment—"

Sam stood frozen, knowing what was going to come next and not wanting to hear, but also refusing to walk away.

"From that moment, I knew I was doomed. It was like automatic programming from some experience I've lived before." Wide, pleading blue eyes gazed into Sam's, willing him to understand.

"Why?" Sam whispered, choking out that word because he had to know—he had to know for sure.

"Because the expression on her face... I've seen it before." Sarah paused again, but this time she was the strong one, asking Sam whether he really, really wanted to hear this.

Deep down, Sam knew. And he didn't want to hear this girl say it about this old friend of his. But he nodded, anyway.

"I remember that exact same expression… on Drake."

Sam gently extracted his arm from the girl's grasp.

"Go get some sleep, Sarah," he said, his voice gruff.

Then he went to look for Astrid.

Shay didn't feel like walking, so she ran at her full speed towards the nursery.

Why had she snapped like that?

"I'm so stupid," Shay muttered, as she suddenly appeared in the middle of the nursery. She located Mason's mattress almost immediately. Tonight, he was in one of the baby cribs—he was one of the youngest people in the FAYZ, after all. Not many babies had survived.

The little boy was illuminated by the blue-white moonlight, fast asleep, and snoring a little, courtesy of Shay's vampiric hearing. He was also, Shay noticed, sucking on his thumb. Shay couldn't help but smile a little at this.

"He's cute, isn't he?" A sarcastic voice sounded from behind her. Shay whirled around and appeared right where the sound came from, trying to get that person in a chokehold even as she processed the voice.

She landed on empty air. And she had left the crib where Mason was sleeping unguarded.

Shay realized her mistake immediately.

"Drake, you son of a bitch!" Shay hissed, keeping her voice low so she wouldn't wake the kids up and cause a panic.

"My mom's worse than a bitch." Drake replied dryly. Then he clamped his mouth shut. He hadn't meant to tell her that. But luckily, Shay didn't seem to notice.

Almost casually, his tentacle crawled its way towards the boy. His other hand held a machine gun like it weighed nothing.

"Don't touch him."

The tentacle hovered a few inches away from the boy's face before it withdrew.

"Fine." Drake's pale lips curled up in a half-smirk, half-snarl.

Shay snarled back, like a mother protecting her cubs. They stood like that for a while.

"How'd you know I'd come here?" Shay said suddenly, trying to play for time. From her experience with Drake, she realized that he really did like to waste time talking. That was his weakness: he liked to hunt his prey and watch them suffer before he killed them.

"You told him you'd come over." Drake gestured freely with his tentacle at Mason.

Oh, right.

"So you're stalking me." Shay snorted. "I thought you'd have teleported back to your lair or whatever, though."

"I did. Then I came back." Drake's shrugged nonchalantly. "Just in time to see that show you put on, by the way."

Shay growled. She took a few careful steps forward, to get closer to Mason—to protect him.

Drake effortlessly put his body between her and Mason.

They had a mini stare-down.

"Look, just tell me what you're doing here, alright, Drake?" Shay hissed in frustration as she tried to sidestep Drake and failed. "What do you want?"

"I just wanted you to know that after that show you put on? Sam's probably not going to let you near the battlefield for quite some time. So, I'm going to tell you something I'm not supposed to." Drake leaned in closer to her confidentially. Shay flinched backwards slightly.

Drake noticed this and smirked.

"The Gaiaphage is planning to attack the marina. Steal the fishing boats. It'll be sometime soon—nuh-ah ah…" Drake lifted a finger and tutted as Shay tried to interrupt. "I'm telling you this because I really want you to show up, and Sam's not going to let you anywhere near after that stunt you pulled."

"Liar. Sam trusts me." Shay retorted automatically. Then stopped. _Does he?_

"Does he?" Drake smirked knowingly.

"Shut up." Shay snapped back. "Why do you want me there, anyway?"

Drake's eyes flickered downwards, but Shay was too distracted by how the moonlight reflected off his sandy blond hair to notice. She was also too on-edge, trying to notice Drake's moment of weakness and seize it.

"You're my only worthy opponent," Drake said blandly.

Shay darted behind Drake and shielded Mason's crib with her body. Finally. Drake had no hostage anymore.

Drake's tentacle crept forward and brushed a piece of hair away from Shay's face. She snapped at it with her teeth.

"See you there," Drake said. And then he was gone.

**So, Shay has her own sadistic psychopathic side, and Drake's planning something. You should be scared, haha!**

**See you all next time! :)**

**~Nightingalelynx**


	5. Octopus

**Disclaimer: None of the characters in the story belong to me, except Shay. (But even Shay is based on Vampire Diaries). They belong to Michael Grant. Enjoy! Reviews would be appreciated.**

**By the way, sorry for this late update everyone. I was busy studying for exams for the past few weeks. :)**

**Warning: Contains violence and gruesome scenes!**

**~Nightingalelynx**

**Chapter 5:**

Shay was feeling guilty. It was usually like this—one day she would snap, and then she'd spend a month or even a half a year trying to redeem herself.

It was no different in the FAYZ, apparently.

For example, Shay organized 'Laundry Days', where everyone turned in their dirty clothes, and then Shay and some of Edilio's helpers would wash them in the ocean and then send it back to the wearers. As a result, everyone smelled and looked a lot better.

She helped others whenever she could, and saved two boys from the remainder of those flying snakes.

She took the nursery kids out on field trips around the FAYZ, and set up a camp that trained them for surviving in the wilderness, fighting, camouflaging, and staying alive in general.

She organized a system where children could go to the edge of the FAYZ once a week and see their parents at the FAYZ wall. In return, they would have to spend at least four days each week working. Their parents were notified by bits of cardboard and printer paper which day and which time their child would be at the FAYZ wall.

All the while trying to keep her bloodlust at bay. She was regarded as the 'Angel of the FAYZ'. She was adored. If only they knew the truth.

Actually, two people had known the truth. Sarah had avoided her, and Sam… Sam had called her vampirism a curse. Right before he walked away from her.

_Shay was on her way home from settling a dispute between two siblings who were arguing over whether that battery belonged to Jake or Samantha when she turned the corner and bumped into Sam._

_She hadn't seen him since the day after she snapped, when he called her a curse in a spit of anger. He was so obviously avoiding her._

"_H-hey, Sam," Shay gulped. She looked at the handsome golden boy with wide brown eyes, watching his every micro-expression to see where she stood with him._

_The sun was unusually bright today—it was almost blinding._

_Sam looked around nervously. "Hey, Shay."_

"_What's up?" Shay chirped, shielding her eyes from the bright haziness of everything._

"_I broke up with Astrid." Sam let out a huge breath. He gave her a sad smile._

"_What?" Shay cried, shocked. She had never seen that coming. "Why?"_

"_Because… she didn't trust you. She was being judgmental, and I defended you." Sam brightened up a little and smiled at Shay._

_Shay felt strangely touched. "Thanks, Sam," she whispered._

"_And Astrid is too different from me. Sure, she was my dream girl, but that was before the FAYZ. She's changed, I've changed." Sam sighed._

"_That sucks," Shay said sympathetically._

"_But the main reason… I think I'm in love with someone else." Sam took in the way Shay's jet-black hair had gone lighter in the sun, the way her button nose lifted up at the end._

_Shay understood immediately. It's hard to misunderstand when a boy makes puppy dog eyes at you, after all._

Astrid was Shay's friend, and stealing her boyfriend? Not so ethical. But at the same time, she had crushed on Sam once, hasn't she? Maybe that would get rid of Shay's own fatal attraction to Drake, which had been eating at her all week along with the guilt.

_Sam swallowed nervously._

_Shay did the same, but stayed frozen to the spot._

_Sam brushed a piece of Shay's locks out of her face._

The memory of Drake doing the exact same thing with his whip hand flashed into Shay's mind.

_Sam breathed in deeply. His hands started to become sweaty._

Sam, the handsome, sweet, 'good boy'. Shay's former crush. Shay's old friend. There would be nothing sketchy or painful in their future if they got together.

_He leaned in an inch, his light brown eyes searching out hers for approval._

Drake. The boy who never sought approval. The bad, sick, insane boy who hated girls. The unseducable. There was no chance they would ever get together, except maybe in hell.

Drake. The boy with those infinite grey eyes and dangerous smirk. The abomination who had shown just a little bit of affection for her, if that was even affection. The monster with the broad, sexy shoulders and the shock of sandy blond hair. The monster with a snake for an arm.

**No.** Drake was the **boy** with a snake for an arm.

Shay looked back into Sam's eyes, ready to tell him. Except… his eyes were dark gold. His honey colored hair had out-of-place streaks of obsidian. His face looked foreign.

_Shay pulled back. _

"Ow!" Shay gasped as her head hit the wall behind her. She blinked twice, then looked around. She was back in Jake and Samantha's house.

"So?" They asked, looking at Shay adoringly. "Whose battery is this?"

"*******************-**********************************-*************************"

Where had that hallucination come from? Shay thought, afterwards. The guy at the end of the hallucination—the boy that had been neither Sam nor Drake… he seemed familiar, somehow.

For the most part, Shay tried not to think about it. Especially the part where she had chosen Drake.

Shay walked, in human speed, towards her room. She'd had enough of being the 'angel'. She just wanted to go home, stare out the window, and try not to think about… blood.

There it was again—the hunger. She had her most recent bloody meal a month ago, and it was beginning to take its toll on her.

Don't think about that, Shay, Shay tried to say to herself. But somehow, the words wouldn't come out of her mouth. Her legs felt like lead all of a sudden. She felt lightheaded and her vision went hazy.

She was moving in slow motion. Freaking out now, Shay tried to wave her hands around desperately. Her muscles tensed gradually, the defined lines in her arm filling up slowly as she tried to raise her hands.

"Gaia! What the hell do you think you're doing?" Shay shrieked in her mind. "Let me go!" She tried to blink, but her eyelids came down so, so slowly.

Her eyes burned.

Shay tried to take a deep breath, but the air filtered into her lungs—too slowly. She felt herself suffocating gradually… but that was crazy. Shay didn't even need to breathe!

"Shay."

Shay blinked… at normal speed. She heaved a huge breath. A huge, relieved smile crossed her face… until she realized exactly what she was staring at.

Drake was a dark shape framed by the bright, silvery light. It seriously was freaking poetic.

"Drake. What are you doing here? Stalking me?" Shay was breathing heavily now, afraid because she had been caught at such a vulnerable moment, afraid because he was _here, _in Perdido Beach, but mostly afraid because of the rising heat in the air between them.

"Yeah." The grey-eyed boy gave Shay a slow smile. Suddenly, Shay was hit by another wave of uncertainty.

"Are… are you another hallucination?" Shay asked suddenly. The thought was like ice water to the face.

Drake frowned. "You've been having hallucinations?" He asked. He took a few swaggering steps forward.

There was a strand of shaggy blonde hair hanging right in front of one of his eyes, Shay noticed. It looked like it itched, too.

Before Shay realized what she was doing, her hand was already up and brushing that piece of hair away from his eye. Her hand connected with the soft strand of hair.

He really was right here, right in front of her.

"You're not afraid of me," Drake marveled.

"Oh, I am." Shay said quickly. Then she cursed her own impulsiveness. Why tell her enemy that?

Drake let out a brief chuckle before he managed to rein it back into a confused expression.

"You're less scared of me than most people are," Drake said stiffly.

Shay felt a little overwhelmed. What to say, what to do? One thing was for sure—Shay had no intention of sounding the alarm.

"I chose you over Sam." Shay blurted out suddenly, remember her earlier hallucination. She bit her lip. Crap.

"You… you what?"

"I mean… in my hallucination. I dreamed that Sam asked me out after he dumped Astrid, which is really weird, but I didn't know it was a hallucination, so I turned Sam down after I thought about you." Shay blabbered on. She peeked up through her thick eyelashes, hoping Drake wouldn't laugh.

He didn't. Instead, he looked stunned.

"You chose me… over Sam."

"Yeah." Shay confirmed awkwardly. She felt her heart sinking. Had she just confessed her love to a monster? She'd always been impulsive, but… this?

Shay took a few stumbling steps backwards before turning around and walking as fast as her shaking legs would carry her. She would flee, but with dignity. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of running.

Drake laughed. "You really are messed up," he said.

"Yeah, I'm glad someone understands." Shay joked humorlessly without turning around. She continued heading in the direction of the Cliff-top hotel—where her room was.

Drake instinctively followed her before he stopped dead as he realized what he was doing.

"Sam called my vampirism a curse that me, an innocent, was born with." Shay continued, ignoring Drake. "He doesn't get it. It's not a curse. It's _me._"

Drake gave in to his inner struggle and took a few long strides until he was walking next to Shay.

"Hmm," he said, sounding disinterested in Shay's emotional baggage. "So, tell me. How old are you, really? Including your vampiric years."

Shay chuckled. Drake wasn't the sweet, comforting type of guy.

"Fifteen." Shay said. She stopped there. She wanted to make Drake _ask_ for it—for the answer to the question that had to be burning on his mind.

"Oh, let me guess: it's because you actually age in human years until you drink blood for the first time." Drake replied arrogantly, refusing to give in.

"…Something like that." Shay couldn't believe it. This thug had some brains, too. "It's not blood, I drink blood already… it's a trigger. I was searching for it when I got stuck in the wrong place at the wrong time." Shay sighed.

"Hmm." There it was again: the disinterest. He had won and he knew it. Shay clenched her fist.

"Drake?" Shay hated this feeling—hated it desperately, but her uncertainty was nearly killing her now.

"Don't worry, I don't love you." Drake drawled in reply.

Shay looked up, partly in surprise, partly to see whether he was telling the truth.

"I—" Shay began.

"And don't worry, I'm not doing this for any side but my own." Drake continued knowingly as he swaggered past Shay. "Where's your room?"

"Aren't you worried I'd lead you into some kind of a trap?" Shay was still in shock.

"No."

"Why not?"

Drake shrugged. But before he could answer, he choked on thin air. He let out a strangled cry.

"Drake!" Shay cried in a hushed voice.

The lean, broad shouldered boy convulsed a little, doing an odd little dance as if something was trying to rip him apart from within.

From within.

"Shit! Is it Brittney?" Shay said suddenly, realizing the implications.

"We can't let her know—" Drake gasped, collapsing onto the concrete.

His whip-hand pulsed and faded slightly into a pale hand still containing baby-fat.

"Drake!" Shay hissed, slapping him harshly in the face. The whip reappeared.

"Get out of here." Drake ordered harshly. The veins in his forehead stood out in his effort. The veins pulsed with blood.

That vein. Shay was fixated. She could not, for the life of her, tear her gaze away.

"Shay!" Drake hissed, his voice was hoarse now. He wouldn't be able to hold on for long.

But Shay had never been the most rational of people.

"—She's disappeared off the face of the FAYZ." A slightly more high-pitched voice came suddenly from around the corner.

Shay's head snapped up. But apart from that she was frozen. She knew if she moved, the first thing she would do would be to rip right through Drake's jugulars.

"I'm sorry, Sam. I can't find her."

"Wait, Brianna, have you checked her room at the Cliff-top?"

"I did, but that was an hour ago… I'll go check again."

The whip curled around Shay's ankles.

"Shh-Shay…" Drake was pleading. She could see the helplessness in his smoky grey eyes.

She stood the boy up effortlessly. Her fangs probed at her cracked lips. She dipped her head slowly, desperately wanting—but at the same time not wanting—to taste the blood that pulsed in those veins.

Pain filled grey eyes widened in realization.

_Yeah_, Shay said wordlessly through her now golden-eyed gaze. _I'm a bigger monster than you are._

Drake curled his lips up in a painful smile. Slowly, slowly, he shook his head. _No, I don't think so, _he challenged.

Shay swallowed hard.

Then she realized that her gaze had left the veins pulsing in his neck. Instead, she was looking into his eyes. She had broken out of the bloodlust's hold temporarily. The raven-haired girl lifted Drake up effortlessly and sprinted into the forest, just as Brianna turned the corner.

She dropped Drake onto a pile of leaves the moment they were out of sight of the town. She backed away, sweating, panting, and gasping for air and for that tangy iron smell that was all too prominent in the air.

Suddenly, she realized that the whip hand was already gone—replaced by a pale hand.

Drake stared desperately into Shay's eyes. His mouth opened and closed like a goldfish.

"She can't know—" He repeated, gurgling out the words as his tongue warped into Brittney's.

Shay nodded once and vanished in the darkness of the forest.

Brittney emerged. Her baby blue eyes took in her surroundings, all excited. Then her excitement transformed almost immediately into confusion.

"What the—"

Almost immediately, Drake started to reappear again. This time, the fight lasted for less than a few seconds, as Brittney was still too surprised to react.

Drake stood up and brushed bits of leaves and mud off his clothes.

"Stupid, annoying girl, that Brittney." He said nonchalantly. Then: "you were taking me to your room?"

Shay appeared from behind the tree. Like always, it took Drake's breath away how much she looked like Diana at first sight.

"What—why…" She composed herself a little. "She was expecting something. I can tell."

"You." Drake smirked. "She was expecting to see you and me, holed up somewhere."

"Why?"

"She suspected. She still suspects, I'm sure." Drake shrugged smugly. "But we beat her this time." He raised his whip hand for a high-five, almost instinctively. Then he seemed to realize what, exactly, he was holding up.

His whip lingered awkwardly in the air for a little longer. It began to fall.

Shay reached out her hand and high-fived the tentacle. Then she elbowed Drake playfully in his ribs and danced off.

"Come on! My room is in the Cliff-top." She threw a radiant smile over her shoulder. "Just don't go all _Brittney_ on me all of a sudden," she teased.

_Diana's nowhere near as unpredictable as Shay is, _Drake thought.

He almost smiled. Instead, he said: "You're seriously sick in the head, bloodsucker."

"You too, octopus." Shay giggled.

"You did not just call me that." Drake growled back.

"I _so _just did!" Shay called over her shoulder. She was already halfway to town.

"You're _so _going to regret that."

"Oh yeah? What are you gonna do?"

"I can think of a few things."

Shay laughed, sounding nothing like Diana.

**I have a confession: I have writer's block! So if you have any ideas, etc, just PM me! Thanks, guys.**

**Till next time.**

**~Nightingalelynx**


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